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Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Viddy Thrown Into Turmoil As O'Brien Loses CEO Post

Live by the echo chamber, die by the echo chamber. Or so, it seems, as Los Angeles-based mobile video sharing startup Viddy learns that being the startup-darling-of-the-second isn't all that it's cut out to be for a startup. Viddy has lost its CEO, Brett O'Brien, in a shakeup that reported has to do with either not accepting (or not getting) an acquisition offer from Twitter. Viddy, which is venture backed by New Enterprise Associates, Goldman Sachs, Khosla Ventures, and Battery Ventures, has been thrown into turmoil after news that CEO Brett O'Brien has been cut out of day to day operations at the mobile app developer by its board of directors.

Viddy had been one of the Southern California startups playing the "hottest startup of the hour" game, calling itself the "next Instagram", inking celebrity deals with Snoop Dogg, Justin Bieber, Will Smith, and parading across the technology press with its boasts of being the next thing in mobile and social. However, that strategy appears to have backfired as the firm's user count has plummeted, dropping to 4 to 5 million uniques a month down from over 30 million last spring.